ITS Responsible Fashion Award winner Olivia Rubens. Photo: Courtesy of the ITS.
The pandemic scuppered travel plans to Trieste, Italy, where the International Talent Support Award ceremony has been held since 2002. So the 2020 edition was reimagined as a mainly digital affair. Films and videos replaced the typically busy schedule of fashion shows, exhibitions, talks, and parties; the award ceremony was filmed in a hybrid physical-digital format and live-streamed from the city’s historic Palazzo della Regione.
This year’s ITS Responsible Fashion Award went to the Canadian-born, London-based designer Olivia Rubens, for a collection, dubbed Duplicitous Lives, that explored feminine identities. Referencing the work of Cindy Sherman, Juno Calypso, and Laurie Simmons, Rubens played with juxtapositions of protective layers, soft-structured corsetry, and masked headdresses. “Masks not only have the power to conceal our identity,” she said. “They also transform it into anything we want and create a sense of safety, as no one can spot our differences; we all become one.”
Rubens’s elaborate creations were strong on sustainability. She worked mainly with traceably-sourced knitted textures, or with non-toxic dissolvable plant-based yarn, and collaborated with manufacturers of organic cottons and fabrics made from recycled denim and bio (plant-based) plastic. Her narrative, engagement on social issues, and artsy creativity interested the international jury, which included, among others, MoMA’s senior curator Paola Antonelli; Koché designer Kristelle Kocher; Colville founder Lucinda Chambers; Valerie Steele, director of FIT Museum; and Orsola De Castro, founder of Fashion Revolution. Rubens will receive a cash prize of €10,000; she also took home the Italian Camera della Moda Award, a cash prize of €5,000.